Rebellion brewing in Saudi city
Assassinations in Sakaka, power base of a branch of the royal family, reflect nationwide anger against the monarchy
By JOHN R. BRADLEY
FOR THE STRAITS TIMES
VENEER OF UNITY CANNOT HIDE ANGER FOR RULING FAMLY
SAKAKA - The rebellion in al-Jouf shows in microcosm what is happening throughout Saudi Arabia.
There is now a near-universal domestic resistance to the rule of the al-Saud family.
For 70 years, it has claimed to have unified the people of the land that it conquered, and afterwards gave its name to.
But it managed to do that only superficially.
Getting rid of the al-Saud is fast becoming a question not only of necessity for ordinary Saudis, but of honour.
A Saudi who gave the Qatar-based satellite television station al-Jazeera an interview about suppression and growing instability in the kingdom last year was arrested minutes later live on air, but he managed to say what none of the local Saudi media is allowed to before he was dragged away.
Abdul Aziz al-Tayyar told al-Jazeera by telephone that Saudi security forces had surrounded his home in Riyadh in September and were preparing to storm his house.
But even as his door was being kicked in, al-Tayyar used his last few minutes of freedom to tell the millions of viewers how 'all tribesmen are now willing to fight this government'.
'We will protect the rights of our people,' he added.
'This is not the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia any more. It is a jungle full of monsters - the Saudi people are suppressed. They suffer poverty and unemployment,' he shouted into the telephone. -- John R. Bradley
SAKAKA (Saudi Arabia) - The tiny city of Sakaka in the remote al-Jouf province that borders Iraq may seem an unlikely setting for the beginning of a revolution against the ruling al-Saud family.
But one does not have to spend too long here to realise that this is what is happening.
Al-Jouf has witnessed an extraordinary level of political violence in recent months.
The deputy governor, say local residents, was assassinated.
Also shot down was the police chief, executed by a group of men who forced their way into his home.
Even before these bloody incidents, the region's top Syariah Court judge was shot down as he drove to work early one morning.
Seven men have so far been arrested over the shootings, according to Saudi officials.
They admit that the attacks are linked, and that the seven may have been aided by as many as 40 others.
Elsewhere in Saudi Arabia, such violence could be put down to tribal feuds or the general lawlessness of a remote region.
And there are also, everyone agrees, new social problems in al-Jouf, of the kind that is now plaguing this once crime-free Islamic state.
Archaeological sites, defaced by the graffiti of the alienated, are also littered with the evidence of widespread drug abuse.
But residents of the provincial capital Sakaka insist that the violence here is political.
They say it stems from the fact that al-Jouf is the historic power base of the al-Sudairy branch of the royal family, which includes King Fahd and his six full brothers.
Known as the Sudairy Seven, they include Prince Naif, the Interior Minister, Prince Sultan, the Defence Minister, and Prince Salman, the Governor of Riyadh.
They make all the important economic and political decisions in Saudi Arabia, with the King's favourite son, Abdul Aziz, standing in increasingly for his father.
But all members of the vast al-Sudairy clan consider themselves, and expect others to treat them as, princes and princesses.
When it comes to business and local government in al-Jouf, the clan has ruled the roost for the seven decades since the kingdom was founded.
For more than 40 of those years, the governor was one of their own.
But other merchant families and tribes which were prominent before al-Jouf was incorporated into the Saudi kingdom and al-Sudairy took over are rebelling.
The five streets of Sakaka are now deserted after dusk.
Since the series of killings, members of the al-Sudairy clan have not been able to venture out of their walled villas without an armed guard.
Special security police in bullet-proof jackets and wielding machine guns man permanent roadblocks on the approach roads into the city.
Outsiders allowed in are closely observed by secret police.
On the odd occasion that the visitor is a Westerner, his car is tailed day and night, as much for his own protection as out of inveterate Saudi suspicion.
The families and tribes here are exploiting the vulnerability of a perhaps fatally weakened Saudi ruling family to reassert their territorial claims over those of the al-Sudairy.
As many as 60 per cent of Saudis identify strongly with a tribe.
Since the increased instability following last year's bombings in Riyadh on May 12 and Nov 8, the ruling family has been eager to show that it has the full support of the tribal sheikhs.
But al-Jouf shows what everyone knows: that tribes will switch their 'allegiance' as soon as it is convenient.
Residents say the final straw was the build-up to the invasion of Iraq, when United States troops took control of the airport in the nearby Arar, the kingdom's official border crossing with Iraq.
This was deeply resented by all Saudis, but especially by al-Jouf's residents, who have historic tribal links to Iraqis across the border.
Many local officers in the Saudi army resigned at the time in protest against being relieved temporarily of their duties by US soldiers, say Saudi opposition groups.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Saudis have since sneaked across the border into Iraq to join the jihad against US-led occupation forces.
A number have been arrested by the Iraqi police, who describe them as 'Arab Wahhabis', in a pejorative reference to Saudi Arabia's austere, jihad-oriented brand of Islam.
Other Saudis have been implicated in suicide attacks in Iraq, including one that targeted the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad.
Only four people have so far been caught before they managed to get into Iraq, according to official Saudi government statements, leading many to wonder whether the border guards in al-Jouf are turning a blind eye.
straitstimes.asia1.com.sg |
